Musk has been in secret contact with Putin since 2022, a new report says – POLITICO

The bombshell claims come at a critical time in the US election campaign, but the businessman's influence extends far beyond politics, through his social networking platform US Information.

His Starlink satellite internet service underscores an important aspect of Musk's influence: The billionaire gave Ukraine free access to his system after Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

It was hailed as an important tool in Ukraine's ability to defend itself against Russian forces, but relations between Musk and Ukrainian authorities cooled over the course of the war, and Musk stopped and restricted funding for the terminals to Ukraine even the use of Starlink by its military to control drones.

In October 2022, Musk also began tweeting a series of Kremlin talking points about the war, which he presented as a peace plan but which sparked fierce opposition from senior officials in Kyiv, even President Volodymyr Zelensky himself.

In early 2024, Ukrainian military intelligence reports said that Musk's satellite service was being used by the Russian army on the Ukrainian front.

According to Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's only communication with Musk was a phone call in which he and Putin discussed “space and current and future technologies.”